Forwarding rule specifically for lunch breaks

[Isaak]

Hi

We have an out of office schedule that triggers the out of office voicemail at hours before and after office hours but also during break times. This works fine for most cases but this is a problem with internal calls. I'd like them to go through in any case because some colleagues stop their lunch breaks sooner than others, but I can't set a specific rule for break time voicemails, that should only trigger for external calls.

Is it maybe possible to accomplish this?

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Hello @Isaak

Please note that when the PBX is set to Out of office hours the extensions are automatically switched (if enabled) to DND. during break times however the extensions are set to Away.
Extensions are affected by break times however trunks do not. Trunks are only affected from out of office hours.
So you could configure your system to use only In and out of office hours by removing the Break times and also disable the Auto switch from the extensions.
This way trunks will send the calls to voicemail during out of office hours and extensions will be available for internal calls.
In the following example the PBX will be In office hours from 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00. The rest of the time the PBX will be set to out of office hours


Alternatively you can use the Call Flow designer to design an application that controls calls based on time. https://www.3cx.com/phone-system/call-flow-designer/

 

[Isaak]

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately trunk office hours will be too hardcore and not achieve what I want.

I'm looking for a situation where we standard aren't reachable outside of 9:00-17:00, but where my colleagues still have the option to remain available on any kind of day at any kind of time. I wanted to achieve this with the status of extensions. They should just have to change it to Available again to become available. The same during break time, or it would be even better to stay a full hour unavailable to external calls but always available to internal calls. But I can't seem to be able to achieve this in any way. I've also discussed this in many ways with our 3CX partner, but unfortunately, they can't provide this result.

Is this technically even possible with 3CX or do I have to look into call flow designer to achieve this?

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

If settings the trunks to out of office hours and leaving the extensions to available does not achieve the functionality you want then you will need to look into the call flow designer for more functionality.

 

[pmterp]

We had a similar request. Surprised this isn't easier to accommodate. Maybe time for a post in suggested features.

One way to take care of this is to set an exception under the call forwarding rules to direct external calls to voicemail. Its a pain because it has to be added per extensions.

Our provider sends "+1" in front of every call so we were able to add a rule that says:
Calls From Caller ID "+1*"
Received During "added our lunch hours"
Forward to "Forward to Voicemail"

Hope that helps.

 

[Isaak]

Thank you for the replies. Will look at the suggested options.